“Mr. Summ— er, Dobbin, believes he might have left behind his walking stick. A black stick with a gold head.”
Interest lit her eyes. “Gold, was it?”
I knew then that the stick wasn’t here. This girl would have sold it the moment she’d found it, and no wonder. The disappointment on her face when she shook her head was genuine. “Never saw it.”
“He did not have it with him when he visited yesterday?”
“Naw. Mind you, ’e weren’t ’ere long, and it were late.”
“Ah, well. I apologize for disturbing you.”
I took in the room before I went. The chimney smoked, the children sat sullenly, and Nellie looked as though she hadn’t had a good meal in a fortnight. I fished inside my pocket and took out what few shillings I had to spare.
“Here.” I pressed them to her hand. “For your trouble.”
I turned to go. Behind me, she chuckled. “Yer a soft touch, ye are, sir.”
From the other side of the door came the sound of drunken voices and the tramping of heavy feet. Nellie gasped. “Me ’usband!”
“You say nothing,” I said. The situation was awkward, but not insurmountable. “I will speak to him.”
The door banged open, and a man who must have weighed twenty stone filled the doorway. He was red faced, greasy haired, and cup-shot. Two men almost as large as he was crowded in behind him.
“Who the devil—”
Before her husband could say one word more, Nellie flew at me, screeching. “’E’s a peach! Come about the money. Run for it!”
“Oh ’is ’e?” Nellie’s husband reached for me.
I knew that Nellie acted out of self-preservation. For her husband to find her alone with an unknown gentleman only invited him to knock her about. I suspected he commonly did so, regardless. But as the large man and his equally large friends pounced on me, I could not feel much understanding.
Years battling the Corsican Monster in Spain and Portugal, and before that, service in India, had honed my skills, but I lagged against three huge men, and my ruined leg hindered me. They hauled me down the stairs, me fighting all the way, and tossed me into the street.
I landed, as luck would have it, on my bad leg. I lay groaning on the cobbles, cursing walking sticks in general and Summerville in particular.
I’d kept hold of my own walking stick, a fine weapon, but after traveling the length of London, spending too many precious coins, and being pummeled for my pains, I was no closer to finding Summerville’s.
“Sir?” a gentle voice above me asked. “Can I help?”
I peered up through the rain to see a familiar face hovering over me. I’d seen the same face this morning in the jewelers’ shop, but this apparition wore a threadbare coat, shabby clothes, and the dog collar of a parson.
“Summerville?”
***
As the man helped me to my feet, I realized he wasn’t Summerville. At least, notmySummerville.
He walked me to the relative warmth of his rooms on the ground floor of a nearby boarding house and fed me coffee.
“I am vicar here, of this parish,” Franklin Summerville told me as we sipped the rather weak brew. “There was never much money in the family. Most of it went to buy George his commission. George took the sword; I took the cloth.”
I thought that the cloth had been rather thrust upon him, but I did not say so.
Realization struck me. “You are Dobbin,” I said.
He stared at me, stricken. “Pardon?”
“You are the father of Nellie’s children.” I sat back, stretching my game leg. My coat was ripped, and my valet, Bartholomew, would be greatly distressed. He’d give my bruises as much attention, but Bartholomew prided himself on keeping my few garments fine. “I thought your brother to be her paramour at first. But he is not, is he?”
